Catacombs

Domino; 2009

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Cass McCombs works quietly. Over the course of three full-lengths and five years, McCombs has quickly slipped in and out of scenes, skipping from one major American city to the next like he owed stacks of cash in every one. He's played with folk, grafting bedroom pop flourishes to sonic skeletons just strong enough to support them. He swam through 1980s Brit jangle and deep chasms of reverb. No matter how much mileage he accrued, one constant held firm: His lyrical shell games often kept listeners at arm's length, regardless of how well-crafted and inviting his melodies were. McCombs' songs were addictively opaque-- easy to hear, tough to digest, and even more difficult to describe to your friends over beers.

McCombs' slipperiness seemed as much like a rejection and re-routing of the traditional singer-songwriter tag as it did a refusal to meet a listener halfway, as though the dude were allergic to interpretation or the idea that someone, anyone, might want to peer inside his braincave. It all sounds like a carefully conceived blend between garden-variety male vulnerability issues and wild-eyed, guitar-toting-dude-who-fancies-himself-an-enigma bullshit. But on Catacombs, his fourth full-length and most stripped-down effort to date, the singer-songwriter steps out from behind the curtain that's cloaked his work in the past. And despite the sparser arrangements and increased focus on direct lyricism, it's every bit as aurally hypnotic as his previous work. It seems like he realized there was someone he really did want to sing to.

Reportedly a tribute to his wife, these are songs for the heart more than the head. Opener "Dreams Come True Girl" is beautiful evidence of that. It's a straight-ahead chord progression that's just a minor chord kiss away from Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" and Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright". McCombs washes it in Pacific surf, lets it dry, and then flips it into a late-blossoming duet with actress Karen Black of Easy Rider and Nashville fame. A stunt cameo like that could easily fog up a recording, but Black's turn and lower register compliments the feet-up vibe really well. "You Saved My Life" waltzes farther into territory, McCombs' croon swaying along to a bass line that never ever loses its way. Hammocks of pedal steel, duvets of synth, steady breaths of acoustic guitar-- it's a warm, understated arrangement that typifies music for sunlit rooms and Sunday mornings. Most impressively, there is not a trace of sap or slobber to be found anywhere.

"The Executioner's Song" takes the same approach tospeech-songserenading and despite a defiantly mid-tempo pace that borders on drowsy, its heartbeat doesn't waver. "Harmonia" and "Prima Donna" are simple strummers that recall early-70s Dylan, the former an especially strong showcase for McCombs' voice. Smooth as river stones and perfectly evocative when dipping into baritone raps or twirling in falsetto, it's fit to carry songs so bare. "Lionkiller Got Married" traces narrative threads back to 2007's Dropping the Writ and signals a shift towards the outwardly old-timey and too well-defined-- a rickety template that only serves to box him in. In fact, the bounce of "Jonesy Boy" and Main Street shuffle of "One Way to Go" both run on and out of steam.

It's good reason to come back to the beginning though, to the track whose directness stands tall above a set with inches to spare: "Dreams Come True Girl". Given a song like this (the chorus straight up kills me every time), and a staggering mind/skill set like McCombs', it's remarkable that he's avoided being part of the greater discussion on great American songwriters. While Conor Oberst's been saddled/showered with New Dylan hosannas and critical tongue baths this decade, McCombs has fashioned himself a groove as new school rambler and pokerfaced tone poet totally under the radar. It's a space he seems and sounds to have been most comfortable in. Until now.